I like to think of myself as a pos­i­tive and opti­mistic per­son. It seems to me to make for an eas­ier and more enjoy­able jour­ney through life. So I was intrigued when I read of neu­ro­sci­en­tist Tali Sharot’s research into the Opti­mism Bias, which has shown that despite all the bad news sto­ries we are bom­barded with on a daily basis: war, vio­lence, wrong-doing and finan­cial melt­down, the major­ity of us are opti­mistic by nature; our brains are hard­wired to be so. It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing con­cept and one I had to find out more about, so I bought the book and met with Tali in her office at Uni­ver­sity Col­lege Lon­don for an enthralling dis­cus­sion. Read the rest of this entry »